Singh's veiled criticism of the judiciary was quickly condemned by the opposition BJP which advised the AICC General Secretary to "learn and understand" why there were a "series of scams" in the UPA government instead of "blaming the judiciary".
"By calling CBI a parrot in cage, then a Central Administrative Bench in Bangalore calling the IB a chicken... Now I have a question to the people in general. Are we not belittling our institutions? That's it.
Singh later said the Supreme Court has to be respected and that he had the greatest regard for judiciary.
"And in my political career, I have never sort of belittled the judiciary.
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But then my only request to the judiciary is that the off-the-cuff observations unfortunately create headlines and at the same time the person against whom the the remarks are made doesn't have the opportunity to appeal against these observations," he said.
BJP lost no time in launching an attack on the Congress leader for "blaming the highest judiciary".
"If the morale of the CBI has been downgraded, it is only because of the rank abuse of the CBI by the Government. CBI was deliberately not allowed to take up fair investigation.
"Otherwise the minister of his (UPA) government would not have sought to weaken the import of the CBI's entire investigations in the coalgate. Why it was done because the Prime Minister was involved in the coalgate scam," BJP leader Ravishankar Prasad alleged.